Red Schoendienst

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Red Schoendienst

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Red Schoendienst

Red Schoendienst was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1989 by the Veterans' Committee.

Five highlights of Red Schoendienst's career:

Red Schoendienst was named to ten All-Star teams and received MVP votes six times.

Schoendienst had four top-10 finishes in MVP voting. He finished fourth in 1953 when he batted .342/.405/.502 with a career-high 107 runs scored. He finished third in MVP voting in 1957 when he led the NL in hits with 200, batting .307/.337/.476, including .310/.348/.434 in 93 games for the pennant-winning Milwaukee Braves.

Over his 12-year prime, 1946 - 1957, Schoendienst had the second-most hits (2,043) and second-most doubles (360) in MLB (both behind teammate Stan Musial). He had the fourth-most runs scored over the same 12 seasons (1,036).

Schoendienst led National League second basemen in fielding percentage six times, in range factor four times, in putouts and assists three times each, and in double plays twice.

Schoendienst managed the Cardinals for twelve full seasons and parts of two others. For his managerial career, he won 1,041 games with a .522 winning percentage, including two pennants and one World Series championship.

The first two tables below present Red Schoendienst's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1945	SLN	22	137	19.1	17.2	2.7	0.8
1946	SLN	23	142	17.9	16.5	3.4	1.6
1947	SLN	24	151	18.5	18.3	2.5	0.7
1948	SLN	25	119	12.4	13.0	1.0	-0.4
1949	SLN	26	151	20.2	18.6	3.8	1.8
1950	SLN	27	153	17.7	19.8	0.2	-1.8
1951	SLN	28	135	17.7	16.5	3.2	1.4
1952	SLN	29	152	22.0	17.7	6.6	4.6
1953	SLN	30	146	20.7	17.0	6.1	4.1
1954	SLN	31	148	19.0	19.1	2.3	0.2
1955	SLN	32	145	17.2	17.7	1.8	0.0
+– 1956		33	132	13.1	15.1	-0.1	-1.5
	NY1		92	8.4	10.8	-1.0	-2.0
	SLN		40	4.7	4.3	1.0	0.5
+– 1957		34	150	20.5	17.9	5.1	3.1
	MLN		93	13.2	10.2	4.5	3.3
	NY1		57	7.4	7.7	0.6	-0.2
1958	MLN	35	106	11.6	12.4	0.9	-0.3
1959	MLN	36	5	0.0	0.1	-0.1	-0.1
1960	MLN	37	67	6.3	6.3	0.9	0.2
1961	SLN	38	72	3.0	3.9	-0.2	-0.6
1962	SLN	39	98	3.8	4.6	-0.0	-0.5
1963	SLN	40	6	0.2	0.2	0.0	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,215	260.9	251.8	40.0	13.3
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			19	2.2	2.6	-0.1	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,234	263.1	254.5	39.9	13.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1945	SLN	22	137	18.2	18.1	0.9	-1.0
1946	SLN	23	142	16.8	17.5	1.4	-0.3
1947	SLN	24	151	17.1	19.6	-0.1	-1.9
1948	SLN	25	119	12.6	12.7	1.4	0.1
1949	SLN	26	151	19.6	19.3	2.6	0.5
1950	SLN	27	153	18.0	19.5	0.7	-1.2
1951	SLN	28	135	17.5	16.7	2.8	1.0
1952	SLN	29	152	20.8	18.9	4.3	2.2
1953	SLN	30	146	20.7	17.1	6.0	4.0
1954	SLN	31	148	19.2	18.9	2.7	0.7
1955	SLN	32	145	17.4	17.4	2.3	0.5
+– 1956		33	132	13.6	14.6	1.1	-0.4
	NY1		92	9.3	9.9	0.8	-0.2
	SLN		40	4.3	4.7	0.2	-0.2
+– 1957		34	150	20.3	18.1	4.7	2.7
	MLN		93	12.3	11.0	2.9	1.7
	NY1		57	8.0	7.1	1.8	1.0
1958	MLN	35	106	11.6	12.4	0.9	-0.3
1959	MLN	36	5	0.0	0.1	-0.1	-0.1
1960	MLN	37	67	6.0	6.5	0.4	-0.3
1961	SLN	38	72	3.4	3.6	0.5	0.1
1962	SLN	39	98	3.9	4.5	0.1	-0.4
1963	SLN	40	6	0.2	0.2	0.0	-0.0
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			2,215	256.9	255.8	32.5	5.8
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			19	2.3	2.6	-0.0	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			2,234	259.2	258.4	32.5	5.5

The Hall-of-Fame primarily lists Red Schoendienst as a player, although his Hall-of-Fame case is enhanced by his 12 seasons managing the St. Louis Cardinals which included back-to-back pennants in 1967 and 1968.

But I write about "Player" won-lost records, so I'll focus on Schoendienst's playing career here.

For his career, Schoendienst batted .289, hitting over .300 five times (not counting 1961 and 1962, when he batted .300 in 286 plate appearances across the two seasons).

Schoendienst was not a prolific basestealer (although he led the National League in stolen bases his rookie season, 1945, with 26) but he was an excellent baserunner. He batted first or second most of his career, scoring 88 or more runs nine times.

The next table shows the top 10 players in baserunning wins over non-pitcher average from 1946 through 1957, Red Schoendienst's 12-season prime.

		Baserunning, 1946 - 1957
		eWins	eLosses	eWinPct	eWOPA
1	Mickey Mantle	9.1	5.5	0.626	3.5
2	Red Schoendienst	15.5	11.8	0.568	3.3
3	Pee Wee Reese	16.5	12.9	0.561	3.1
4	Dom DiMaggio	10.2	7.3	0.584	2.7
5	Johnny Pesky	11.1	8.2	0.574	2.6
6	Jackie Robinson	15.3	12.3	0.555	2.6
7	Hank Bauer	8.4	5.9	0.586	2.2
8	Bobby Avila	10.4	8.0	0.566	2.1
9	Bill Bruton	7.5	5.2	0.589	2.1
10	Billy Goodman	9.9	7.7	0.561	1.9

Positional Average excludes pitcher offense

Schoendienst was also widely regarded as one of the best fielding second basemen of his era - which just preceded the introduction of Gold Gloves - leading his league in fielding percentage at second base six times. The next table, then, shows the top 10 second basemen in net fielding wins over the same 12 years.

		Top Ten Fielding Second Basemen, 1946 - 1957
		eWins	eLosses	Net Wins
1	Red Schoendienst	62.5	58.1	4.4
2	Jackie Robinson	27.1	23.0	4.1
3	Nellie Fox	48.6	45.0	3.6
4	Pete Suder	25.7	23.5	2.2
5	Bobby Doerr	32.7	30.8	1.9
6	Joe Gordon	24.3	22.5	1.8
7	Don Blasingame	10.3	8.8	1.5
8	Jim Gilliam	22.4	21.0	1.3
9	Wayne Terwilliger	20.3	19.2	1.1
10	Jerry Coleman	18.5	17.5	1.0

And, putting it all together, the top 10 players over this 12-year period with at least 50% of their player wins earned as a second baseman, sorted by pWins over replacement level (pWORL).

		Top 10 Second Basemen (1946 - 1957, sorted by pWORL)
		pWins	pLosses	pWOPA	pWORL
1	Jackie Robinson	195.9	141.4	51.5	69.0
2	Bobby Doerr	123.9	95.7	29.7	41.0
3	Red Schoendienst	216.8	207.2	13.8	35.9
4	Bobby Avila	138.5	121.4	19.8	33.4
5	Eddie Stanky	109.7	89.0	22.2	32.5
6	Nellie Fox	163.2	155.5	10.9	27.5
7	Jim Gilliam	98.0	83.8	15.0	24.5
8	Joe Gordon	88.6	73.8	16.1	24.4
9	Billy Goodman	144.2	132.6	9.4	23.9
10	Connie Ryan	105.8	103.1	4.3	15.1

Granted, the results here are cherry-picked to show Red Schoendienst in the best possible light. But in his prime, Red Schoendienst was one of the best second basemen in the major leagues.

Article last updated: September 30, 2020

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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